In camera-shy Canberra on Saturday, 26-year-old # 14 Paola Suarez of Argentina won the Women's Classic by defeating 31-year-old # 23 Silvia Farina Elia of Italy 3-6, 6-4, 7-6(5). It was Paola's 4th WTA singles title in 8 finals. Silvia, who had defeated Paola both of the previous times they played, has won 3 WTA singles titles in 11 finals.

31-year-old # 60 Amy Frazier of the US reached the final in Hobart for the second straight year, but this time she won, gaining her 1st WTA singles title since 1999. On Friday Amy, who had won 6 WTA singles titles in 13 previous finals, defeated 27-year-old # 44 Shinobu Asagoe of Japan 6-3, 6-3. Shinobu was playing in just her 2nd WTA singles final; she reached her first final last year in Birmingham. Surprisingly, it was their 1st WTA match against each other. Undaunted, Shinobu returned to the court after a rest and won her third WTA doubles title, partnered this time with Seiko Okamoto. Both Amy and Shinobu are very easy to look at, but apparently the press was unable to smuggle cameras into Tasmania. So Amy is shown in Stanford on July 22, 2003, and Shinobu is shown in LA on August 4, also last year.

The time zone for all 3 tourneys this week is GMT (UCT, ZULU) +10 hours (Pacific Time+18, often=the next day, 6 hours earlier; ET+15).
Unfortunately all 3 tourneys have lousy websites (Sydney used to have a good website, now it is almost useless). No live scoring this week, and probably few photos.